


there are two birds in your head

by hubrisandwax



Series: Shameless episode codas [4]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: 5x11 coda, And I'm not sorry, Bipolar Ian, Discussions of mental illness, M/M, about ian's feelings, can be read as a standalone, pt 2 now includes blowjobs, this is basically... a long self indulgent fic, towards himself and his family and monica and mickey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-30
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-20 10:18:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3646605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hubrisandwax/pseuds/hubrisandwax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 5x11 coda: Ian has a lot of trouble struggling with his feeling as he journeys with Monica. He eventually calls Mickey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. there are two birds in your head, pt 1

**Author's Note:**

> so after last night's mostly unsatisfactory episode, i wrote this to ally my fears for next week's finale. it's very self-indulgent. it's basically what hope would happen were ian to realise that he'd made a mistake by leaving mickey, with lots of self-reflection and plenty of feels. i enjoyed the monica and ian scenes (and tbh as much as i hate it, certainly don't blame ian for leaving at lest his family after that scene in the lockup), but as a follow on from that, i wrote this. i've opened another chapter as this is already a small monster and i have to write an essay, but i may write a follow-up fic feat. more important discussions and sex in the next few days as i feel like my ending was unsatisfactory and could be expanded upon.
> 
> i'm sorry for any inaccuracies or misrepresentations, particularly in regard to ian's biopolar. i'm trying. let me know if anything needs to be changed.
> 
> content warning for mentions of exchanging sex for services (in this case, monica for a ride in a truck), but nothing actually happens. also for mentions of depression etc.

You can’t do this.

It’s been three days since you left Chicago. Two nights. You’re somewhere in Missouri, you think, travelling southwest – the landscape smudged from small towns to open tawny cornfields about three hours ago. The sky is a crisp, clear blue, and Monica is sitting in the cab and flirting with the driver while you sit in the tray alone. This is the third car Monica’s managed to flag down. You think this driver might ask for sexual favours, going by the way he keeps touching Monica’s leg, and it makes you feel sick.

You have enough money between you for one more night in a motel. Monica hasn’t said where you’re headed. You’re not really sure she knows, to be honest, but she seems excited. At night, you mostly want to sleep, but she sits on the end of your bed and talks animatedly about when you were a kid, anecdotes about Debbie and Carl and Lip and Fiona. It doesn’t make you feel any better. After what was said in the briefing – crazy, different, put us through hell – you’re so fucking ashamed you don’t know how you could’ve faced Fiona the next morning. And Mickey, if he turned up at all.

You’re trying not to think about Mickey, but it’s hard, especially when your phone lights up with his name so often. The calls are becoming less frequent the further you go; the longer you’re away. Despondently, you wonder if he’ll give up. It’s one reason you had to run. You didn’t want him to not be there to pick you up, like he wasn’t at the clinic, and you don’t think you could’ve handled that on top of Fiona’s gaze, heavy with implication, and your family’s fear, their embarrassment, their discomfort almost palpable.

You’re not really sure how you feel about everything. Numb, mostly. You knew that going AWOL after – after everything that happened that you can’t say, won’t say, can barely think about without wanting to get out of your skin – would mean the end. Being arrested, having your charges read out, was just reality striking again. The clubs and drugs and men were to stop the feelings from catching up with you, which was all for naught in the end, considering the long stretches of time you spent alone in Mickey’s bed with nothing but your thoughts. Disappointment tastes like stale sweat and too many drugs and expensive cologne on skin.

Unlike Lip, you life has never played out like you wanted. Like you expected. No matter how many times he fucks up, the hand of God or whateverthefuck is back, offering him a way out; you do everything you can to reach where you want to be and get knocked on your fucking ass for trying. You’re not bitter. Lip always just walked into a room and sucked the space right out of it, while you feel like you always fought for every inch could get only to be pushed out anyway. It’s always been that way. Lip overshadowed you, the only things you were better at than him being physical fitness and ROTC, and you don’t even have those anymore. Now you get bipolar while Lip pursues a dream at college that was never really his in the first place. You’re broken. Damaged goods. Once you were jealous, but now – it’s just how things are.

Monica was right in leaving, and she was right to take you with her this time – everyone is better off without you.

They were your thoughts for the first twenty-four hours. By the third truck stop, the second motel, doubt started to creep in. Now you’ve been travelling for about fifty hours, around ten of those by car, and you’re tired all the way to your bones, a heavy exhaustion that no amount of sleep can lift. You’re worried you’re going to crash, thoughts fluffy and almost indistinct.

You phone starts ringing. Mickey. You’d changed his name after the clinic, when you thought you were over, to something more impersonal. You flirted with ‘Milkovich’. Instead, Mick became Mickey.

The battery’s about to run flat – it’s at 10%. You hit the top button to stop it from buzzing.

A few moments later, though, your phone buzzes again, _zz zz_ , and stops. A message. Probably voicemail. You look at the screen –

Your stomach drops.

Mickey’s trying a different tact, now. Instead of words, he’s sending pictures. The thumbnail shows an image of you, naked, wrapped under his sheet and smiling, hair flopping into your eyes as you flip him the bird. You don’t remember him taking it, but you remember that morning. It was hot. Yevgeny was crying, and Mandy was banging about in the kitchen with Svetlana. Mickey wound up rolling on top of you, pulling off the sheet, and fingering himself in front of you until he was able to ride you into the mattress, fucking himself with no abandon on your cock.

Your phone buzzes again. You almost close your eyes and delete the message, but clearly you’re a glutton for punishment, because you see the next image and open the message. This one is of the two of you a few weeks later, and you remember the photo. You took it. Mickey looks grumpy as fuck, and you’re kissing his cheek, grinning, winking at the camera, intentionally irritating him. You didn’t know he’d kept it – he must have sent it to himself.

The next is of you and Yev. You’re blowing a raspberry on his stomach. Svetlana took this, you know, because you can see Mickey staring fondly at you in the background.

The second last is another candid. You don’t know who the photographer was, but it’s summer again, and you’re outside the Gallagher house by the pool. Mickey’s there, too, and you’re looking at each other, and –

It breaks your fucking heart.

You’re a pragmatist. A realist. Romance is for movies and fucking Nicolas sparks novels. But you can’t deny the way Mickey’s looking at you, the way you’re looking at him, like you’re the colours to each other’s grey-washed worlds, and it fucking hurts. Love is like eating glass and an inexplicable sort of agony but it’s also like sunshine and fucking at two am and the way the earth smells after it rains.

The final image is simple. Mickey’s face, his eyes red-rimmed, his face cocaine-white with dark purple bruises smudged below his eyes, and he looks… drained. Lost. He’s giving you the finger with one hand, and he’s scrawled under it, “come the fuck home Ian” in bright red.

You think you want to cry. You haven’t, not since the tears when you were on the phone to Monica, and before then, you don’t remember. It’s fucking cold, though. You pull your body further in to itself and rest your face on your knees, which are drawn up to your chest, and pocket your phone.

The road stretches like a long back ribbon out over the countryside, or perhaps an uninterrupted argument. It could go either way. You’re not sure what you want; your mother and her understanding and love, or Mickey, who’s given everything for you, who only tries his fucking hardest for you.

Monica will leave, in the end. You know she’ll disappear with nothing but a note and a number scrawled in spidery script like she did in that squat all those months ago. Is it worth it, though – a few weeks of love and understanding until she flits off to where she feels she’s needed next, when you could start a new life, a clean life, without the judgement and the walking on eggshells and the fucking _expectations_. Everyone keeps looking at you like they’re waiting for you to break, like you should’ve broken a long time ago, gazes full of pity, and it’s awful. Belittling.

Mickey said nothing in the prison, though. He looked at you like he was about to cry and rubbed his hand over his mouth, like he does when he’s upset. You refused to look at him, but couldn’t help but see him out of the corner of your eye as you let your family’s words wash over you, your jaw set. They let you out on condition of your mental illness and their own responsibility to ensure minors don’t enlist. You wonder if he did turn up with Fiona the next day. Probably, by the number of times he’s called you.

You know that he’s just as frightened as everyone else, but he’s been trying. He’s the only one who hasn’t brushed you off with a few words, who’s actually attempted to deal with it, head on, and understand. You often wonder why he isn’t angry, though. Why he hasn’t taken to it with his fists the way he deals with every other problem. Every day you’ve half expected him to leave, half wanted him to, if you’re truthful, to prove your own suspicions, and that was what the dugout was about. You wanted part of your ‘old’ life back. You wanted to remind him, too, and you wanted to push him. Instead he came at you with his lips and teeth and tongue and kissed the fight right out of you. He’s been so intensely caring, so worried, so loving, and you don’t at all feel that you deserve it.

Monica shouldn’t leave, but will. It’s inevitable. Mickey should leave, but never has. Monica loves you in an abstract sense because you’re her son. Her favourite. She says you should be you, but she doesn’t know who you are, not really. She knows the illness. She knows the kid your were ten years ago. She knows the manic, emotionally damaged Ian from a few months ago.

Mickey knows you. He’s seen you at your worst, when you’ve been at your most manic, when you’ve been your lowest, when you were strung out on cocaine, when you were so angry at yourself and the disease that you screamed awful slurs at him and hit him, when you were manipulative and mean because you wanted something real. He’s also seen you at your best – happy and carefree, during the middle of sex, after getting an A on a test, in love. He knows you day to day and wants you anyway, not despite it, but in spite of it. Even because of it.

He’s your good thing. Something you’ve done right. Could keep doing right. After everything you’ve been through, together and separately, you only love him more.

Without thinking, you pull your phone from your pocket and hit his name on the redial list. You hold your breath and almost hang up again and again at every second of silence, every second it rings, and you feel sick. He might not pick up, he might –

“Ian?” You manage to make out his voice over the roar of the wind as it whips past your head. “Is that – Ian?” His voice is weak, far away.

“Yeah,” you say, your own voice rough.

“Don’t hang up. Don’t you fucking dare hang up,” he says forcefully. You imagine him standing up, running his hand over his mouth in that familiar gesture before working his fingers into his hair. He exhales. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.”

“Where the fuck are you? I can hear jack shit.”

You didn’t really plan this conversation, because how can you answer this? Mostly you wanted to hear his voice. But you say, truthfully, “I don’t know,” because you’re too tired to fight it. “A truck.”

Mickey pauses. “Check your phone. The weather app. Your mom there?”

“Monica’s here,” you say. You pull the phone away from your ear and do what he says. “We’re near Aurora, Missouri.”

“Fuck, Ian.”

“Yeah,” you say on exhale, shakily, and offer a short, disbelieving laugh devoid of humor.

“Can you…” Mickey trails off, like he’s contemplating something. “I can pick you up on Route 60.”

“Okay.”

“Text me where you end up. I can be there in like, what, five hours?”

“Okay,” you say again. You clear your throat. You’re worried you’re about to cry again. Mickey is offering to pick you up from the middle of bumfuck, nowheresville, on top of everything else. It’s all too much. “Thank you.”

“Whatever, Ian,” he says, but he sounds relieved, and he hangs up.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s about fifteen minutes before you pass anything that looks inhabited. You bang on the glass at the back of the cab, and Monica peers through the window, smiling, eyes wide and very, very blue. As you gesture that you want to pull over at the next stop, like you would if you needed the bathroom, she nods at you and taps the driver on the shoulder.

He pulls over at a gas station.

Once the truck is stationary, you launch yourself off the trailer and over to the side of the road where throw up everything you’ve eaten in the last day – which is a bag of chips and a few candy snakes. Monica looks worried.

“You okay, baby?” she says, stepping forward to touch your back. You wipe your mouth on the back of your hand and breathe.

“I want to go home,” you say after a few beats. Monica looks confused. “To Chicago.”

“Why?” Realisation dawns. You watch it flicker across her face. “It’s your boyfriend, isn’t it?”

You say nothing.

“Look, Ian, baby, it’s not – you know –“

“He fucking tries, mom,” you say, voice weak. “He’s not… he’ll never be Frank.”

Monica’s mouth stretches into a thin, straight line. “But he doesn’t understand. He won’t get it. Not like I do.”

You look over Monica’s shoulder at the driver getting petrol, the cashier behind the glass, the long, rolling plains that disappear into sky. Mickey might not get it like Monica, but he understands in a different way. He gets _Ian_. Frank and Monica only understand themselves. You don’t know how to say this to Monica, except, “I love him.”

It’s the first time you’ve said it out loud since Mickey’s wedding. Since _the guy you’re in love with_ – it seems like forever ago. Monica’s face softens. “I loved Frank, too. He wanted to fix me in a different way to everyone else. It’s the same, though, Ian.”

The wording reminds you of something said to you a long time ago by Fiona: _You can’t fix people, Ian; you can only love them_. Monica doesn’t get it. She won’t. She can’t. You feel terribly, achingly sad for her, in that moment, and you try to smile at her. You want to make her feel loved, good, happy, wanted, like she deserves. Not like an outsider, like you both often have. A problem. But you can’t. You can only love her, too.

“I’m sorry, mom.” She’s not who you owe an apology to, not really, but there’s not a lot else to say. You can’t be honest – it would break her and your relationship. You do love her, but you’ve always missed the concept of a mother more than you ever specifically missed Monica. You miss Mickey because he’s _Mickey_. So instead you say, “I love you, too. I need you.” He pauses. “But I also need Mickey.”

Her face kind of crumples in on itself, then, and you realise that she, too, wanted someone – maybe even more than you did – to understand her. Someone who got it. A friend. But you can’t be that for her, not really, and she can’t be that for you. As much as your family’s words fucking hurt, they were right – you’re destructive, un-medicated. Monica always has been, too. You know she gets this. She was being selfish, as ever, and appealed to you in an intense moment of vulnerability, but you can forgive her for it. You love her. She’s your mom, and she’ll always love you unconditionally, even if it’s not in the right way. “I’m sorry too, Ian.”

She lets you pull out his phone, then, and you send Mickey your location. Monica waves the driver off, insisting that she’ll wait with you. He looks like he’s about to protest their lack of ‘payment’, but you pull yourself up to your full height, try to look intimidating, and the driver backs down. He leaves. Monica goes to buy ‘snacks’, and you sit on the lip of concrete outside the toilet, pulling your body in again. Monica reappears in a few moments, carrying a bottle of sparkling water, saying it with help your stomach, and a bag of burger rings.

Both of you are quiet for a while. It’s not exactly awkward, but it’s not comfortable, either. Monica keeps glancing over at you, and sometimes she looks sad, others fond. She strokes the back of your cheek with her finger. “You’re so good, Ian.”

You lean against her. She wraps her arm around your shoulders. You want to tell her everything and nothing. You’re so used to bottling how you feel, from trying not to be a burden, to keeping your life private life private, and you’re worried that once you start you won’t stop.

Monica isn’t owed an explanation, though. Mickey is.

You think you fall asleep on her lap at the half-hour point, and wake when the sun is much lower in the sky. Monica is running her hands through your hair, whispering songs to herself with her eyes closed, leaning back against the wall where she must have moved you both. The low, wintry sun is shining on her face, her hair glowing like some sort of halo. She looks beautiful.

You realise you’ve woken because your phone is buzzing. Pulling it from your pocket, you see that you have a text from Mickey: _stay right the fuck where u r, ian. b there in an hour. pretty sure i broke every speed limit and ur paying for the tickets._

You smile. Monica keeps humming to herself. You ease yourself away from her, and her eyelids flutter open. “Okay?” she says. You nod.

The carpark is still empty. It looks like the gas station is about to close up. You say, “Tell me a story,” because there’s so much you don’t know, and Monica grins at you before launching into another anecdote about you and Debbie and your curly red hair.

“I don’t know why you straighten it,” she says conversationally. “You had such lovely curls as a little boy.”

You blush. Mickey’s told you similar on the days you couldn’t be bothered dealing with it. He’d pull at them and watch with fascination as they sprung back up. “Like a fuckin’ spring,” he’d say. “Magic.”

The sky is starting to look like it’s on fire as the sun sets, red and orange light bleeding across the horizon. You hear the engine of Mickey’s car before your see it, and then it’s pulling into the car park too quickly, skidding as Mickey slams on the brakes. Monica looks disappointed, her face falling as she recounts a different story.

Mickey’s out of the car and moving quickly over to you before you can even blink. You’re not sure what to expect, and Monica sops talking, so you stand. Perhaps he’ll yell. Maybe he’ll punch you.

Instead you end up with an armful of Mickey, and he’s running his hands through your hair, and kissing your neck and your eyelids and your mouth. The kiss is intense, but brief, Mickey pulling away suddenly as if he’s suddenly aware that he’s got an audience. He eyeballs Monica and raises his eyebrows at her. Her face splits over in an enormous smile. Mickey looks confused, like he’s not sure if he should be confused or angry.

“Mickey,” is all you manage, weakly.

He grabs the back of your neck and says defensively, “The fuck is she doing here?”

“Monica,” Monica says, offering her hand. “You must be Mickey.”

He glares at it like it’s personally offended him, before saying, “C’mon, Ian. You must be fucking freezing. Let’s get you home.”

“Can I get a ride to Aurora?” Monica says, following them towards the car. Mickey looks ropable, and like he’s about to yell, or worse, so you interrupt with, “Sure, mom,” because as much as Mickey doesn’t deserve to be fucked around, you can’t leave your mother overnight at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Mickey says nothing.

“Will you be okay?” you say once you’re all in the car and Mickey’s starting the engine.

“I’ll be fine, sweetie. The boyfriend’s around somewhere in Kansas, I think.”

You empty your pockets of money and hand it all to her. “Get a room somewhere, okay?”

The drive is pretty tense. Mickey’s refusing to talk, and Monica looks… not quite happy, but not quite sad, either. She insists on holding your hand over the console. The half-hour passes very quickly, though, and soon the car is illuminated by streetlights as you pull into a car park with “MOTEL” advertised in big glowing letters.

“I’ll miss you, Ian,” Monica says as she gets out of the car. She kisses your hand. “Remember what we’ve talked about. Keep in touch.” She glances over at Mickey. “Do good by him, all right? All I can ask is that you love him. Take care.”

Then she’s gone as fast as she appeared, another apparition. Hurricane Monica -more a friendly summer thunderstorm than a hurricane, really.

Mickey’s left looking pissed, color dusting his cheeks, and you’re not sure if it’s because of what Monica said or from anger. He pulls out of the car park silently and eases back out onto the open road.

 

* * *

 

You must fall asleep again, because when you wake, it’s completely dark, and Mickey’s hand has replaced Monica’s on yours. He has it trapped in a death grip, like he’s worried that if he lets go, you might disappear again. So you squeeze back and say, “Where are we?”

“Southern Illinois.” He glances over at you before turning back to the windscreen. “Your pills and a bottle of water are in the glove compartment.”

You retrieve them without protest and swallow them down. They taste terrible. Mickey also included a banana, and you suddenly realise that you’re staving, so you finish that, too, along with the water. As you’re putting your pills into your pocket and the rubbish back where it came from, Mickey says, “Ian, I think we-“

“Can we spend the night?” you interrupt. “Do you have enough cash?”

Mickey looks surprised. “Er, yeah. I should.”

“I just…” you choke on the words, so you try again. “I just can’t go home, Mick. Not tonight.”

He’s silent for a moment. “Yeah. I get you.”

He pulls into the next motel you pass, and you head straight to the reception desk. You approach the desk first, because Mickey keeps glancing nervously at you, like he’s worried you’ll get trouble if you ask for a double instead of a twin. You know him too well. The dude behind the counter barely bats an eye as Mickey hands over the cash, and Mickey visibly relaxes as you head to the room.

It’s awkward, once you’re in there, unlike it ever is between you. Mickey goes to get something from the vending machines while you shower, and once you’re both back in the room, the tension returns. Mickey lowers himself to the foot of the bed, dropping everything in his arms to the duvet, and you crawl up so you’re curled against the headboard. You need to talk, you know, but you’re scared.

The room isn’t much – garish wallpaper, scratchy sheets – but it’s better than having to face your family. Mickey takes off his jacket and shifts until he’s sitting beside you. He looks sad. Disappointed. You want him to be angry, because anger’s easy. Sadness is not. You also want to apologise, for everything, but you’re not sure where to begin.

Mickey pulls you both down until you’re lying opposite each other, almost nose to nose, on top of the sheets as the thermostat kicks to life. He presses his mouth to yours, just once, before pulling back and stroking your cheek. Drawing in a shuddering breath, he says, “Don’t fucking scare me like that again, Ian. Please.”

You don’t say anything. Sometimes loving someone is about giving them the space to breathe and trusting that everything will be said, in the end.

“You can’t just keep running from your problems,” he continues. “Like, literally running.”

“I know,” you say softly.

Mickey breathes out, hard. “Fuck, Ian. You have no idea.”

“I think I have a lot of things to apologise for.”

“And I don’t? You’re sick, Ian.”

“Being sick isn’t an excuse, Mickey. It’s an explanation. You can’t just… ignore all the times I’ve been a fucking asshole because I have bipolar.” You’re sitting, now, gripping at the sheets with white knuckles. Mickey rises, too, and looks like he’s about to touch you before he thinks better of it. “It’s all me, Mickey. The cheating. The running. Being emotionally closed off. Hitting you and calling you fucking terrible things when I don’t get what I want.” You close your eyes and breathe out through your teeth. “It’s not just the illness. You can’t blame just that.”

Mickey’s silent. You open your eyes and glance over at him, where he’s staring at his hands. It’s heartbreaking. He looks small, lost, scared; just how you feel.

“I left because I’m a coward. I can’t take responsibility for my actions. It’s easier to run than face my family, who think I’m like my mom, who call me _crazy_ and _different_ and look at me like I’m a ticking bomb, and I just keep proving it to them over and over.” You want to cry again, and you’re not sure if it’s out of sadness or frustration. You’re trying not to goad Mickey, but you don’t know why he’s still here. Especially after all the shit you put him through. Particularly considering his past.

Mickey looks irritated. “So, what, you want me to get fucking angry at you for all the shit you’ve done?”

“Yes!”

“Angry that you fucking slept with other men because I couldn’t be enough?” He’s breathing harder, now. “And that you took my baby? That you punch me and call me slurs instead of just telling me what you fuckin’ want? For scaring me all the goddamn time?”

You swallow and nod.

“Yeah, well, I’m not going to give you the fucking satisfaction. It won’t do shit, Ian.”

You frown. “That’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it. You got a problem?” Mickey runs his hand across his mouth. When you don’t answer, he says, “Look, Ian. Of course I’m fucking angry. But we can’t solve this by screaming at each other, or hitting stuff. That’s unhealthy as fuck. Our relationship’s better than that.” He looks so fucking earnest that it completely breaks you. “I’m not sayin’ there’s stuff we don’t need to work out, or that trust has been broken, but God, Ian, this thing we have? It’s fucking great, okay. I don’t wanna lose it.”

He’s right. You want an argument because you feel like you need something to confirm your fears. Mickey’s not going to give it to you, though, and you need to trust him, now. So you say, “Okay,” very softly. “I’m still… really sorry, Mickey.”

“Me too, Ian,” Mickey says, and runs a hand through your hair before he leans in to hug you. He pulls you right against his chest and presses the words against your skin: “We’re okay.”

It would be best to fuck it out now, probably, but you’re so tired still. So instead you take your clothes off, get under the covers, and press against each other. There’s tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, and they stretch, long and endless, blurring to comfort and happiness. You let yourself be elated for the first time in a long while.

You still have a lot to talk about: your illness, what it means in the long run, how you need to work on trusting each other after all this. About what Monica said. There’s also the shit that happened to you both in the months you joined the army and the aftermath of that.

But for now, you know that when you step into a room, you suck all the space right out of it for Mickey. He listens to you. He cares about you. Right now, it’s enough.


	2. there are two birds in your head, pt 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morning blowjobs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was originally gonna be a 2 parter, but i figured i'd sandwich the porn. so, have this, and the feelings-y bit will come hopefully later today (depending on how much i like what i've written, which currently isn't a lot). the other stuff is more angsty and i thought we all needed more fluff right now.
> 
> this can be read as a standalone, really.

You wake to cold, wintry light leaking under the blinds and your arms draped around another body. It’s that moment between consciousness and sleep where the world is warm and fuzzy and safe. Wrapped in your embrace, Mickey smells smoky, sweet; like cigarettes, whiskey, and warm milk.

You nose at the back of his neck and sigh. He stirs a little. You’re tempted drift back to sleep, but the last few days crash heavily around you, everything you’ve been trying to forget brought to the surface, and you bolt upright.

“The fuck?” Mickey grumbles, rolling over. “’S early, Ian. Sleep.”

You ease yourself back to the sheets, trying to calm your racing heartbeat, trying to ease your breathing back into a consistent pattern. __Inhale, hold for seven, and breathe out for eleven_. Repeat_.

Mickey moves closer, pressing his face into your hair. Gently, you’re coaxed back under, Mickey’s short fingers and broad, flat palm stretched out beside your face the last thing you remember.

* * *

 

 

When you wake again, it’s to too much white and two bright shards of blue. Mickey’s face comes into focus slowly, in bursts, his eyes blinking sleepily at you, and he reaches out to stroke your hair, your cheek, your lips.

“I love you,” he says into the silence. The words fall like bullets from the barrel of his mouth; they strike you in the stomach, aching, too much. You feel so much after feeling nothing for so long. It hurts again. Loving him will always hurt, you think, but it’s a good kind of hurt, like the sort you feel after running for to long, or fucking too hard, your muscles burning, lungs aching. 

Mickey looks resolved, though, like this is something he really means. Has meant for a while. His expression doesn’t change as you gaze at him and say nothing back, and he leans forward until his mouth is pressed to yours, eyes open, lips moving tenderly against your skin. Your eyes might start leaking; you’re not sure. Mickey kisses the tears away.

Kissing Mickey always makes your world stutter just a little bit, like the floor is falling away from your feet and your brain is short-circuiting. He’s sleep-warm, soft, and he tastes sour, but so do you. It’s okay. You feel him shift until he’s holding your jaw in a pistol grip, tilting your head _just so_ , and you groan, your cock growing fuller. Mickey grins against your mouth but keeps kissing you, tongue rolling into your mouth, lips almost bruising yours.

“Mick,” you say, but it’s more gasp into his mouth as you try not to rut against his thigh. He chuckles and pulls away.

“You good?” he says, looking slightly sheepish that he’s asking, and you roll your eyes and bite back a retort. Instead you mumble, _no,_ pull back the sheet, flip him fully onto his back and sink your mouth down onto his cock in one fluid movement. 

Mickey yelps. 

He tastes salty and a little bitter, and his hips rise towards your mouth on impulse, so you dig your fingers into his hipbones and look up and him through your lashes as you suck. He’s lifting his head so he can see you, now, cheeks flushed, pupils blown, and he already looks wrecked, so you say, “So fucking hot, Mick,” and push your mouth back down. He whimpers.

You reach down to your own leaking cock, because you know Mickey loves it when you get off on blowing him, and you push your other hand up towards his face. He opens his already parted lips further, pulling your offered fingers into his mouth, running his tongue along them. When you think they’re wet enough, you pull them out and reach between his legs, pressing them against his hole.

“Fuck, Ian _,_ ” he says, gasping. You grin around his dick and tongue at the head before pushing it to the back of your throat.

A few minutes later, you’re both coming really fucking hard, and you time it so you fall together. You collapse across the mattress, a sprawl of limbs. Mickey moves down the bed. He sucks your bottom lip into his mouth. Bites it, hard. 

“I want you all the time,” he says, voice rough, and you’re reminded of what he told you before. It makes your toes tingle, your stomach flutter. It’s still too much. It’s still not enough.

After more slow, relaxed kisses, you both head to the shower to save time. Mickey soaps your body down carefully, reverently, like he’s memorising every inch. It’s really fucking hot, but also really fucking inconvenient, and you say, “Mick, we’re meant to be saving time, here. You can take pictures later,” but Mickey grumbles and keeps doing what he’s doing. By the time you get out, half an hour has passed, and the skin on your fingers is puckered pink and wrinkled.

“Breakfast?” Mickey says, lighting a cigarette, and you nod as you pull your clothes on.

“A date.”

“If you say so.” He smirks at you. “Such a fucking romantic, Ian. God. Who’da thought.”

You flip him the bird as you try to get your now curly hair to sit properly across your forehead.


	3. there are two birds in your head, pt 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ian and Mickey have a breakfast date feat. further conversation and feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally! this rather large (for canon coda, at least by my standards) fic has finally concluded (back to my superhero au!). this is effectively more indulgent head-canoning: why Ian has acted distant towards Mickey for the majority of season 5. i noticed it before i read anything, and i've seen it discussed a fair bit on tumblr, and how it's likely unrelated to his bipolar diagnosis. in relation to this, and further, separate discussion on tumblr, i also considered what could have occurred during his time in the army. regardless, this is the chapter i'm least comfortable posting, because it's the least grounded in canon. it's almost entirely hypotheses (i do have a backstory and explanation, though).
> 
> cw for (non-direct) discussions of ptsd symptoms.

You end up at a diner a few blocks from the motel. Mickey orders pancakes and asks for a serve of ice cream with Jell-O on the side. You’re not really hungry, to be honest – your stomach has been in knots since you were arrested – but you ask for eggs and bacon and coffee anyway. Mickey looks pleased. He hands you your pills across the table and you dutifully swallow them down with a gulp of water.

There’s still so much you want to say to him, but you’ve never really been good at using words to talk about yourself. It’s always been easier just to let other people have problems and for to you just help them sort them out. To ignore your own and hope they go away, or to try and hash them out with Lip, who ends up reminding you that your problems don’t really matter, anyway. You have Mickey, though, now, and he’s sitting across from you, his hand on your knee under the table as he looks around the diner, brow furrowed, like he’s trying to find an answer to a very complex problem.

You’ve compartmentalised your feelings over the last few days, you know. You could have been locked up for five years, and the fear hasn’t quite left your system yet. Prison was horrible – four tiny gray walls; a hard, unforgiving mattress; the stench of too much bleach and disinfectant and ammonium, which you sometimes think you can still taste at the back of your throat.

Your hand twitches involuntarily on the table, and Mickey looks over at you, eyes big and wide and very, very blue in the dull morning light. “You good?” he says.

“Please, Mick,” you say, pulling your body in on itself again. It sounds like a plea: plaintive and soft. You want to be strong, to be deserving of Mickey’s love, but it’s so fucking hard in a body that no longer feels like it’s your own.

To be honest, the only time you ever feel alive, or like yourself, is with Mickey’s lips pressed against your skin, or his hand fisted around your cock, or your bodies locked in any kind of embrace.

When you glance over at him, Mickey looks pained; looks like he’s on the cusp of saying something he thinks he shouldn’t but feels he needs to anyway. “You’ve been blowing hot and cold for weeks, man. I can’t fucking win.” He runs the hand not pressed against your knee across his mouth, rubbing his lips, closing his eyes, breathing deeply. Upon reopening them, his gaze is so penetrating that you turn away, pulling your shirt over your wrists. You can’t look at him. “Ian, you can’t keep shutting me out.”

You let your curls tumble into your eyes and you don’t say anything. Mickey sighs.

“It’s like sometimes I’m not even me to you. Like I’m a fucking stranger, or you’re a fucking stranger, or I don’t even know the fuck what.” The words are muttered, quiet, like he’s talking to himself as much as he is you. “It’s not always the bipolar, either.”

Your food arrives, then, to your relief. Mickey dumps the ice cream and Jell-O on top of his pancakes and makes a noise that isn’t unlike the ones he makes during sex, and you stare moodily into the yolk of your egg as it trickles across your plate.

“This is really fucking good,” Mickey says around a mouthful as maple syrup drips down his chin, and the corner of your mouth quirks upward. It’s really fucking endearing.

“You got…” you say. Mickey raises his eyebrows at you.

“Huh?”

“Maple syrup.” You point at your bottom lip. Mickey grins and quickly licks it up.

“Yeah, well, you almost have a whole beard, sunshine. A scrappy beard, but…”

“You love it.”

Shrugging, Mickey keeps smiling at you. An intense wash of familiarity hits you, then; complete comfort as you look at Mickey, his happy face, clear skin, bright eyes. At how well you know and understand him. It comes at you like a matte truck, and you love him so intensely for that space of time, that heartbeat, you stop playing with your eggs and whisper, “The army, I…”

Mickey swallows and doesn’t load up another forkful, clearly aware of the intensity that has suddenly fallen upon you. The look on his face softens. He reaches out, grazing his fingers against your wrist, before pulling back and pretending to cut off another piece of pancake.

You push your some bacon onto the fork, so you have something to do with your hands, and you lift it to your mouth and chew. Once you’ve swallowed, it settles as a hard lump in your stomach.

“The reason I stole the helicopter, I…” You huff out a breath and shake your head, frustrated at your inability to continue. “I can’t really talk about it.” You’re shaking, now. You try to stop; it makes it worse. “I’ve… forgotten a lot of it, actually. I can’t even really remember stealing the copter. I just needed to escape, you know?” Forgotten isn’t right, but there isn’t really ay other word to describe it.

Mickey nods, and carefully takes another mouthful of pancake.

“What happened though, I…” You want to laugh, you want to cry, you want to scream; thinking of it makes you frightened, claustrophobic, like your memories are someone else’s, not your own, and you’re living it through their eyes. The time period doesn’t exist to you, not really; there’s before and after and a vague stretch of blurred time in the middle, fuzzy and indistinct. “I tried to stop feeling. It sort of worked, but it was terrifying, and then there was the sex and the clubs and the drugs after, and…"

That’s the buffer zone, you think. The months where you were high off your head on coke, manic a lot of the time, now all a fever dream.

“Now, I…” You swallow and try to take another bite. It’s dry in your mouth. You have to swallow it with coffee. “When I got back, I had to make sure we were in this together, you know, because I just couldn’t. I mean I know my body’s my best asset, especially with the bipolar, too, now, but- “ the words come out tumbling off your tongue in a rush and you bite the rest of them off.

“Fuck, Ian,” Mickey says softly, imploringly. “You’re not just…” He looks disgusted. You shrug. To you, it’s just another fact, like how Fiona was always more invested in Lip’s future than your own. It’s not anything but what it is.

“It’s okay, Mick.”

“It’s fucking not. God, Ian, you could do whatever the fuck you wanted.” He’s staring at you like he believes it. You wonder if he realises that he’s being a hypocrite (very likely not).

It hurts, though, because you can’t do the very thing you wanted. Mickey appears to have realised his mistake too late. “Shit, Ian, I’m sorry, you know that’s-“

“I get it,” you say, and try to smile. “Thank you.”

Mickey just looks upset and frustrated. His fist clenches on the tabletop, the FUCK even more evident when rimmed by white. “Your goddamn family, too. All this, and they…”

“It’s not their fault.”

“Listen to yourself! They sat there with you and said some really fucking stupid things that they shouldn’t have said, at all, and they get upset when you leave?” He rubs his hand over his mouth again, pursing his lips. It works its way around to the back of his neck where he massages the top of his spine. “After everything, and they don’t even fucking ask what you’ve been through, why you’re…”

“I haven’t told anyone,” you say, wrapping your arms around your middle, pushing yourself back against the vinyl seat. “I just haven’t… felt properly since then - with the meds, and even before them. Sometimes it’s like I’m under the ocean, and the emotions are being filtered through water. Or I’m behind glass, and they’re not, and I can’t really reach them, and you know you should be feeling something but you’re just not. I’m not sure how much is the bipolar and how much is other stuff. Me. Both.”

Mickey’s very disconcerted; you can see it in the set of his jaw. To occupy your own eyes you look out the window behind him at the dusty carpark and stab despondently at your bacon. A car pulls up, a red bubble of a thing, and a couple with two kids get out. You wonder how your life would have been different, had that been you ten years ago. What you’d be like had you a normal upbringing.

You adore all your siblings, though; you wouldn’t trade them for anything, even normality and stability. They’re fucking everything. It’s pointless to even ponder, so you refocus on Mickey. He looks like he’s concentrating really hard on the Jell-O lumps swimming in the maple syrup and melted ice cream. “So you’ve been… kinda weird because of the stuff in the army?”

Your mouth twitches grimly. “Yeah,” you say softly.

“Okay,” he says. He takes that moment to rest his fingers over yours on the table and he leans across to kiss you. This time, he tastes like maple syrup and coffee, and the kiss is very sticky. You smile. He’s getting much more comfortable with brief PDA.  
“We’ll stay at mine,” Mickey says, attacking his pancakes again. “We can go back to yours when you’re feeling up to it.”

You’re not sure the shame will ever leave, thick and hot as your spine tingles and your stomach rolls. You nod anyway.

“I’m still… I… I’m sorry, Mick.”

“Stop apologising,” he says. He pushes your leg under the table with his foot. “I know you. I trust you.”

You smile a little and try to finish your breakfast, because nothing means more to you right now than his trust. And He trusts you. He’s not pushing – he’s giving you the space to breathe, and it’s everything.

 

* * *

 

Later, you’re in the car, your hand resting against Mickey’s on the gear stick. He’s keeping to the speed limit, this time, and Spoon’s _Girls Can Tell_ is playing through the speakers. You don’t want to stop touching him; he keeps sending you these tiny little affectionate glances, as if he still can’t quite believe you’re his and he’s yours, like you haven’t been together for the past six months (it’s always the same – Mickey still regards you with wonderment, constantly). You want to tell him you love him, but the words keep catching in your throat. Instead you say:

“I’m scared you’ll leave.”

The landscape is bleeding together outside the car windows, mottled greens and yellows and browns. Indistinct patterns. Mickey looks like he’s debating pulling the car over, before, “I beat someone up when I found out you’d cheated on me.”

You turn immediately to stare at him. “What?”

“That night you… I went to the bar and hit some guy. I was fuckin furious.” He moves his hand from under yours and rubs it over his face, but stays on the road. You stomach falls. “After everything, and you fucking…” he chuckles humourlessly. “And then to find out there were others.”

You feel so small. So ashamed. You curl into the seat.

“Hey, hey, Ian, don’t fucking do that. It’s not the point.” He reaches back across and squeezes your hand in his. “I’m here now. That’s the fucking point, okay? That I goddamn care about you. I care about us about us. And I get why all that shit happened.”

“It’s not going away, Mick,” you say quietly. “Our pasts. The bipolar.”

“Stop the pity parade. I get this is hard. We’ve both been through some fucking shitty crap.” He shakes his head. “No one’s going anywhere. Doesn’t mean it won’t be tough, right, but shit happens, and we’ll take it as it comes.”

Mickey loves you. Mickey wants you. Four days ago the same words were said to you and they made you collapse in on yourself; now, they make you feel strong.

Seeing Monica was important because it made you realise what you could be like without support. Being compared to her is a compliment, sure, because she’s your mother; you’ll always love her, you’ll always seek her acceptance and approval no matter how much your siblings belittle her. She may be incredibly selfish, but she’s enthusiastic, and loving, and she tries to care, even if it’s always in the wrong ways. She’s distinctive. She’s herself, and you admire that.

You may be like her, in part, in looks and maybe disposition, but you’re not her. Like she said, you need to be yourself. Ian Gallagher. Mickey’s never asked you to be any more or any less. He’s loved you, accepted you, regardless.

You need to try, for him. For yourself. For your future, together or separate.

You’re quiet for a bit, before you say, softly, a bit like some kind of prayer: “I love you too, you know.”

The words don’t fix anything. I love you isn’t a cure-all, or an excuse, but you fucking mean them. Mickey grins like a Cheshire cat and squeezes your hand.

“You don't need to tell me, asshole." His expression is vulnerable; soft: very unlike the angry boy you met three years ago. "I know.”

 _This?_ This you _can_ do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part of this is based on my own experience; suffering from ptsd/complex ptsd myself, i mostly extrapolated from my own experiences. please let me know if anything is incorrect, however! thank you so much for reading :). come discuss this /w me further on tumblr, if you want: hubrisandwax.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from Richard Siken's editorial page, Black Telephone. come roll around /w me on tumblr @ hubrisandwax.tumblr.com


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